Stratigraphy of Upper Cenozoic Fluvial Deposits of the La Bajada Constriction Area, New Mexico
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Stratigraphy of Upper Cenozoic Fluvial Deposits of the La Bajada Constriction Area, New Mexico By David P. Dethier and David A. Sawyer Chapter B of The Cerrillos Uplift, the La Bajada Constriction, and Hydrogeologic Framework of the Santo Domingo Basin, Rio Grande Rift, New Mexico Edited by Scott A. Minor Professional Paper 1720–B U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey Contents Abstract .........................................................................................................................................................27 Introduction...................................................................................................................................................27 Stratigraphic Nomenclature and Correlations .......................................................................................28 Fluvial Basin-Fill Deposits...........................................................................................................................28 Lithologic Characteristics .................................................................................................................28 Isotopic and Amino-Acid-Racemization Ages ...............................................................................29 Stratigraphic Framework ............................................................................................................................31 Upper Miocene Through Lower Pleistocene Basin-Fill Deposits ..............................................31 Pleistocene (Post-Bandelier Tuff) Through Holocene Deposits .................................................34 Incisional and Aggradational History of the Ancestral Rio Grande ....................................................36 Hydrogeologic Implications .......................................................................................................................37 References Cited..........................................................................................................................................38 Figures B1. Sketch map of the Cochiti Pueblo area showing location of axial river gravel deposits, Cerros del Rio lava flows, and selected geologic features ................................29 B2. Diagram showing relation between amino acid racemization ratio in Succinea and deposit age, in thousands of years ................................................................31 B3. Stratigraphic sections west of the Rio Grande......................................................................33 B4. Stratigraphic sections near the Rio Grande...........................................................................35 B5. Schematic drawing showing time-position (east-west) distribution of coarse axial river facies deposits and interlayered volcanic rocks in the La Bajada constriction area .........................................................................................................................36 Table B1. Age and height relations of upper Cenozoic alluvium, tephra, and volcanic rocks in the Cochiti Pueblo map area .....................................................................................30 Stratigraphy of Upper Cenozoic Fluvial Deposits of the La Bajada Constriction Area, New Mexico By David P. Dethier and David A. Sawyer Two large ash-flow tuff sheets of the Bandelier Tuff that Abstract erupted at 1.61 and 1.22 Ma buried upland and valley areas in the constriction. Interlayered sediments and volcanic rocks in Coarse- to medium-grained upper Cenozoic fluvial the northeast part of the Santo Domingo basin are preserved in sediments deposited in the Santo Domingo Basin and adjoin- a complex series of horsts and grabens west of the La Bajada ing La Bajada constriction record the influence of faulting, fault zone and are exposed best along the La Bajada fault-zone volcanism, and climate change on protracted deposition by escarpment and near the village of Cochiti Lake. Coarse- the ancestral Rio Grande and adjacent piedmont drainages. grained alluvium continued to be deposited in the La Bajada Axial sand and gravel deposited by the ancestral Rio Grande constriction area during the Pleistocene by the Rio Grande in were derived from uplands to the northeast and northwest the axial part of the basin and by tributary streams on adjacent of the La Bajada constriction. Interfingering piedmont sand, piedmonts. Faulting, episodes of greatly increased sediment silt, and local gravel were derived from the Sangre de Cristo load, and damming by lava flows and sediment provided Mountains to the east and from the Jemez Mountains to the controls on sediment deposition. The composite thickness of west. These sediments form part of the Santa Fe Group, a the Santa Fe Group basin-fill stratigraphic section exceeds sequence of Miocene and younger sediments deposited in a 300 m in the northeast part of the Santo Domingo basin, and series of structural basins along the Rio Grande rift in north- it increases to 3–4 km south of the San Francisco fault in the ern New Mexico. Eastern piedmont deposits of arkosic sand, central part of the basin. Distribution and continuity of late silt, and clay are derived from Precambrian granitic basement Miocene through late Pliocene alluvial deposits and their rocks and intertongue with coarser axial-river gravel and sand inferred subsurface extent imply mainly basin aggradation derived from granite and distinctive quartzite. These two map- during their deposition. Pleistocene fluvial incision by the pable sedimentary facies are considered informal units within ancestral Rio Grande and its tributaries in White Rock Canyon the Sierra Ladrones Formation, whose type area is to the south removed earlier volcanic dams. Several episodes of aggrada- in the Albuquerque Basin. tion and terrace development punctuated erosion during post- Equivalent upper and middle Miocene piedmont deposits Bandelier time in the La Bajada constriction area, suggesting in the Española Basin to the northeast compose the Tesuque that discharge and sediment load were linked to climatic Formation. Uppermost eastern piedmont sediments in the cycles or to other processes that intensified after early Pleis- Santo Domingo Basin, consisting of sand, silt, clay, and local tocene time. Alluvial terrace fills younger than late middle gravel, may be temporally correlative in part with the Ancha Pleistocene record lateral asymmetry of sediment preservation Formation of the Santa Fe area to the east. Upper Miocene and south of Cochiti Dam; the asymmetry was caused by basinal Pliocene western piedmont deposits, which were derived from tilt owing to fault movements or westward growth of the east- an active volcanic complex in the adjoining Jemez Moun- ern piedmont deposits (or both). tains, are assigned to the Cochiti Formation. Deposition of the Cochiti volcaniclastic sediments postdates emplacement of the 7–6.2 Ma Peralta Tuff Member of the Bearhead Rhyolite. Western piedmont deposits contain more gravel and coarser Introduction sand than the eastern piedmont sediments, and they are domi- nated by compositionally diverse volcanic clasts derived from Studies by the U.S. Geological Survey were begun in the upper Miocene Keres Group of the Jemez volcanic field. 1996 to improve understanding of the geologic framework of Piedmont and axial Rio Grande sedimentary deposits the Albuquerque composite basin and adjoining areas, in order in the La Bajada constriction area are interlayered with and that more accurate hydrogeologic parameters could be applied locally overlie Pliocene and early Pleistocene volcanic rocks. to new hydrologic models. The ultimate goal of this multidis- Multiple lava flows and domes that erupted between 2.7 and ciplinary effort has been to better quantify estimates of future 1.1 Ma from the Cerros del Rio volcanic field were emplaced water supplies for northern New Mexico’s growing urban onto basin-fill sediments in the La Bajada constriction area. centers, which largely subsist on aquifers in the Rio Grande rift 28 Hydrogeologic Framework, La Bajada Constriction Area, Rio Grande Rift, New Mexico basin (Bartolino and Cole, 2002). From preexisting hydrologic composed of volcaniclastic sediments shed from the Jemez models it became evident that hydrogeologic uncertainties were volcanic field. We follow Smith and Lavine (1996) by using large in the Santo Domingo Basin area, immediately upgradient Cochiti Formation (unit QTc) for younger western piedmont from the greater Albuquerque metropolitan area, and particu- deposits in the Santo Domingo Basin that overlie the 7–6.2 larly in the northeast part of the basin referred to as the La Ma Peralta Tuff Member of the Bearhead Rhyolite (unit Tbp). Bajada constriction (see chapter A, this volume, for a geologic Older proximal volcaniclastic deposits of the Jemez volcanic definition of this feature as used in this report). Accordingly, a field are informally named Keres Group volcaniclastic depos- priority for new geologic and geophysical investigations was to its (unit Tkvs). Southwest of Peralta Canyon, upper Pliocene better determine the hydrogeologic framework of the La Bajada piedmont gravel of Lookout Park (unit Tglp) caps Cochiti constriction area. This chapter along with the other chapters of Formation sediments (Smith, McIntosh, and Kuhle, 2001), this report present the results of such investigations as recently which in turn probably overlie unnamed and unexposed older conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. Miocene basin-fill deposits.